"Well," Tao Gan said, "it shouldn't be too difficult to find a one-armed woman; there can't be many of them running about in this monastery. Could you see anything of the furnishings of the room, sir?"

"No. I told you I got only one brief glimpse, didn't I?" Judge Dee said crossly.

"In any case it must have happened here in this store-room," Tao Gan remarked cheerfully. "I'll examine the wall; perhaps there's a window concealed behind all those spears and banners there. Perhaps even a trick window."

Judge Dee followed his assistant's movements as he busied himself about the arm-rack. Tao Gan pulled the dusty silk banners aside, looked among the shafts of the spears and tridents, and occasionally rapped the wall with his hard knuckles. He went about it quickly and efficiently, for this work belonged to his former trade. Tao Gan had originally been an itinerant swindler. One year before, shortly after the judge had taken up his post as magistrate of Han-yuan, he had extricated Tao Gan from a nasty situation, and then the wily trickster had mended his ways and entered Judge Dee's service. His wide knowledge of the ways of the underworld, and his skill in locating secret passages and forcing complicated locks, had proved very useful in the tracking down of elusive criminals, and helped the judge to solve more than one difficult case.

Leaving Tao Gan at his work, Judge Dee walked along the left wall, picking his way among the bags and boxes piled on the floor. He looked with distaste at the grotesque masks that were ogling him from the wall. He muttered half to himself, half to Tao Gan: "A weird creed, Taoism! Why should one need all that mummery of mystery plays and pompous religious ceremonies while we have the wise and crystal-clear teachings of our Master Confucius to guide us? One can only say for Taoism that it is at least a purely Chinese creed, and not an importation from the barbarous west, like Buddhism!"